


fearless symmetry

by cygnes



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Accidental Incest, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-10 21:27:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13510116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cygnes/pseuds/cygnes
Summary: Major General Hux has a tryst with a corporate up-and-comer on a planetside leave. It takes him years to realize that isn’t their only connection.(Or: the one where Hux bones his sister.)





	fearless symmetry

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry for everything this fic chooses to be, but hey: You Only Live Once. Originally posted [here](http://manzanas-amargas.tumblr.com/post/169453175075/fic-fearless-symmetry) on tumblr. 
> 
> Content warnings in endnote. Also, these characters are both just. Shitty people. Gird thy loins.

It’s less the hair than the accent that catches his attention. An ‘r’ coming from further back in the mouth, closer to the soft palate; the shape of the vowels as this stranger orders a cocktail of Corellian brandy and bitter cherry liqueur. Hux _knows_ that accent. He’s drawn to it, even as he resents the young woman speaking. No one had beaten the Arkanisian out of her. Spoiled girl.

She’s dressed in a way that fits with the bar’s décor. Sleek, but not ostentatiously stylish. It’s a place for professionals to meet and make connections. Hux is not especially interested in making civilian connections outside of work, but he’s not about to spend a rare planetside leave cooped up in a rented room. And, as someone who cares about his career, he’s not about to indulge in anything that could be used for blackmail purposes. Drinks, conversation, flirtation — wherever those things might lead, fine. Nothing salacious. Nothing illegal. 

The young woman with the Arkanisian accent has red hair. Hux wonders idly if it’s more common among humans on Arkanis than it is elsewhere. He doesn’t have a wide enough frame of reference to draw any conclusions on his own: his memories from that time in his life are dim, and his contact with local people had been limited. He knew one Arkanisian with red hair. That’s all.

Red hair is not interesting to Hux, but he knows from personal experience that some people find it fascinating. Exotic. He is in a respectable establishment with respectable people, including this young woman, who is probably a lawyer or a financier’s attaché or something equally dull. But her hair makes it easier to pretend that he is, after all, engaging in something illicit. A pretty redheaded girl might make a fine living for herself as a prostitute. No, not that, not in a place like this — she would have to be a courtesan. Like some of the minor players in the histories of the Old Republic that he had guiltily hoarded at the Academy, the way some other cadets had hoarded pornography. She could be someone quietly important, influential, but not untouchable. That last part is important.

“Are you just going to stare at me, or are you going to talk to me?” the woman says. She sounds more amused than angry.

“I wasn’t staring,” Hux explains. “I was listening.”

“You _were_ staring,” the woman says. “Whether or not you also happened to be listening.”

“Can I make it up to you?” Hux says. She smiles. 

“Oh, I’m not offended,” she says. “But I wouldn’t say no to a drink. Maybe we could get a table.” She tosses her head in the direction of the balcony. There are a few empty tables. It’s a little too early for the place to be crowded.

“You have a drink already,” Hux says. 

“The next one,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Or at least get something for yourself. Drinking alone is so dull.” 

“Somehow I doubt you’re often obliged to drink alone for very long, or to pay for most your drinks,” Hux says drily. He does oblige her by ordering a drink. Vaschean rye, straight up, in a chilled glass. Chilling the glass doesn’t do much for the taste, but it does give the impression that he knows something about alcohol besides what he learned drinking nameless homebrews that could strip the finish from a durasteel hull. He stands, waiting for her to get up so that they can go sit at a table, but she stays seated.

“Do you know, I think I should be offended?” the woman says. She doesn’t look offended in the slightest. Charmed, more like, or at least intrigued. “You’re casting aspersions.”

“Not at all,” Hux says. “I only meant that you’re…” He trails off, considering his choice of words. This is not a game he often has to play. “Attractive.” It rings a little hollow once it’s out in the air between them, but ‘pretty’ had seemed condescending, and ‘lovely’ too close to romantic. 

“Bet that gets all the other officers swooning after you,” she says, and sips her drink. “Might as well be a sonnet. ‘Attractive.’ You _are_ military, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” he says. “First Order.”

“Mmm,” she hums, and finally does stand up. Not a moment too soon. His glass is very chilled and he’s starting to lose feeling in his fingertips. “I figured. I’ve met my share.” 

In a professional context, he’s sure. But it slots neatly into his little fantasy. She could be a woman like Dell Taharis, who was courted by half the Senate and tangibly influenced policy on at least a dozen worlds but never let herself be tied to anyone. Her only daughter had been officially fatherless but respected rather than ostracized. He imagines this red-haired young woman with her sly sidelong glances and provincial accent in the company of his superiors, suggesting how to reroute shipments from the Core to avoid attracting undue notice. In his mind’s eye, her hair is loose and the tailoring of her dress is less severe. He likes the image.

On the balcony, she finishes her drink quickly and sends him back in for another. The bartender — mostly human, at least, though Hux has his doubts the man is threaded stock — raises his eyebrows knowingly. It is an effort not to scowl or snap at the man. He may be Hux’s inferior, but he is not Hux’s subordinate. 

“I would have thought you’d have a taste for acvavite, as an Arkanisian,” Hux says, trying to keep his tone light. His father hated the stuff, but he did drink it when he couldn’t get Balmorran spiced whiskey anymore. “Does your work take you to Corellia?”

“It's Arkani,” the woman says. “Arkanisian is something the Empire made up. It used to be Arkansi, before that, and some people held onto it during Imperial rule. You were Arkanisian on your census form and Arkansi at home. Before my time, of course. Arkani came about during post-Imperial attempts at cultural reclamation, which was what I was young. Not that there was much to reclaim. I grew up hearing Arkani in school. But you’d hear Arkansi from old people and Arkanisian from adults.” She hasn’t answered his question about Corellia. Hux wonders if that’s significant. “Anyway, acvavite is terrible, like most things about Arkanis. Have you been there? It’s very damp.” 

“My father served there,” Hux says. A half-answer. “At the Academy.”

“Ah,” she says. “Probably too good to mix with my lot.” There’s something hard about her eyes now that doesn’t bode well. 

“You seem to have made something of yourself,” Hux says. 

“Likewise,” she concedes. “And you get points in my book for not immediately harping on about your rank when I guessed you were an officer. I work for Sonn-Blas, and let me tell you, most of the Order officers I meet are very keen to tell me.” 

“What department do you work in?” Hux says.

“Let’s not,” she says with a little sigh. “Talk shop, I mean. You haven’t even asked my name.” He had meant to, but one thing had led to another. “It’s Lili. If you care.”

“Mine’s Armie,” Hux says, and immediately regrets it when she laughs.

“You might have gone for a less obvious alias! Really, a military man, calling himself _army_.”

“It’s short for Armitage,” Hux says. He thinks Lili sounds less like a courtesan’s name and more like a whore’s name, like it should belong to the sort of person some of his compatriots are enjoying on their own planetside leave. He has better manners than to say so.

“Mine’s short for Lilias Valerian,” Lili says, still smiling. Not a whore’s name at all. Maybe not even a courtesan’s. It could be the name of one of the little queens some planets used to have in the manner of nominal self-determination under Old Republic rule. “So I shouldn’t cast aspersions.” She says this with a passable Imperial accent — Imperial by way of the Unknown Regions. Hux’s own accent, or one like it. He’s not sure whether she’s still laughing at him. 

“But you prefer Lili?” he says.

“Well, it’s more convenient,” Lili says. “Easier to cry out in the throes of passion.” She knocks back her second drink, and Hux finishes his first with similar haste, now that they’ve gotten to the crux of the matter. The glass is no longer cold enough to numb his fingers or make his teeth ache, and the taste of the rye is familiar. 

“Yours or mine?” he says briskly. 

“Depends where you’re staying,” Lili says. 

They opt for hers. It’s just slightly above what Hux felt he could afford, which makes him all the more curious about what exactly she does. Maybe they can discuss it once they know each other more intimately. She slips off her dress as soon as the door is closed and locked. She’s showing off: her underclothes are silky, elaborate, not at all what he expected under that sleek and structured dress. Maybe this is her own little indulgence, for her own benefit. He prefers the thought that she had worn them just to go out and find someone, though. Someone who she thought deserved to see her in them. And she has chosen him. 

“Are you one of those boring types who needs to be called ‘sir’ and keep their uniforms on?” Lili says, hands on her slim hips. “Or are you going to undress?”

“I’m not in uniform,” Hux says. To oblige her, he starts undoing the clasps on his blazer. “I like looking at you, that’s all. You distracted me.”

“Narcissist,” Lili says, smiling. “I bet that’s why you were staring in the first place. Because I look like you.” She looks more like what he remembers of his mother, actually, but that doesn’t seem appropriate to say in this context. 

“Wouldn’t that make you a narcissist, too?” he says. 

“Of course. But I’m not trying to pretend otherwise.” Lili draws a hand up from her hip, along her side, briefly cupping her breast. Making a show of how much she enjoys her own body. As much as Hux wants to put his hands on her, he has his priorities straight.

“Do you need a contraceptive stim?” he says. He brought some, just in case. Lili wrinkles her nose in distaste.

“Ugh, what kind of savage do you think I am? I’ve had an implant since I was twelve. Haven’t you?” 

“Yes.” A matter of course, along with inoculations, upon entering the Academy. “But one never can be too careful, with strangers.” 

“Now you’ve got me worried,” Lili says, sitting down on the bed. She starts pulling an array of pins and clips out of her hair and placing them on the nightstand. Her hair comes down slowly: the rosette coils at the back of her head resolve themselves into a trio of loose braids, which she then undoes. Her hair is unevenly crimped when it’s fully loose. She looks debauched already without anyone else’s help. “What kind of strangers, on what kind of strange worlds, do First Order officers generally fuck?”

“I can’t speak for anyone else,” Hux says. His blazer is off, now, and his shirt hangs open, but there’s no graceful way to take off his boots while standing. He may be out of uniform, but he only has one pair of boots. He sits down next to her to take them off and she strokes her knuckles down the length of is back. A feather-light touch. Her hand is small and warm. His own hands tend toward coldness, supposedly an effect of spending so much of his life in artificially-regulated environments. 

Lili tries to help him take off his shirt while he’s taking off his trousers, which probably delays things, though not by very long. She drags her teeth across the inside of his wrist, which is unexpected and not something he would consider an essential part of anyone’s sexual repertoire. He likes it, though, up until she starts talking.

“Kriff, look at you,” she says. “You look like you’re made out of mist-pudding.”

“Well, if you’re quite through with insulting me,” Hux says. He doesn’t know what mist-pudding is, but he can guess that it’s _soft_ and _pale_. More Core-worlds nonsense.

“I like the way you look,” Lili says. “Come on. Don’t back out on me now.”

“How do you want to do this?” Hux says. 

“You could start by taking your briefs off,” Lili says, snapping the waistband with two fingers. Hux refrains from sighing. It’s like she’s trying to drive him off.

“I might like you to leave yours on,” he counters. She frowns. He means it, though. He likes the look of the filmsy fabric and unnecessary straps. “Like a frame on a painting, enhancing its proportions.” Lili flops back on the bed and puts both hands over her face.

“I know what you’re trying to say, I really do, but maybe. Don’t try so hard.” 

“How’s this, then: I want to fuck you while you’re wearing that lingerie because I like how it looks, and you like me looking at you,” he says. She peeks at him between her fingers, and then pushes herself up on her elbows, reclining.

“Acceptable,” she agrees. “And I want to be on top.”

“Fine,” Hux says. He doesn’t care either way. “Where do you want me?” 

Lili puts him in his back in the middle of the bed and runs her hands up the length of his arms. She tangles her warm fingers with his and presses his hands down into the pillows beside his head. “I’d love to tie you up,” she says, “but I get the feeling you’re not the type.”

“Certainly not with partners I don’t know,” Hux says. Not with anyone, actually. Though he has thought about it. It’s just one of those things that are destined to stay in the realm of fantasy, along with attracting courtesans and using his wiles to get close enough to assassinate someone in the throes of passion.

“Something to keep in mind for next time,” Lili says. She leans down to kiss him, and it’s ordinary. Familiar. She tastes of the cocktails she had ordered, and it’s a pleasant and sophisticated sort of taste. He hopes she likes Vaschean rye as much as he’s enjoying the Corellian brandy secondhand. “I don’t think I can keep the knickers on without ripping them,” she breathes against his mouth, and then ruins the effect by licking a long stripe up the side of his face. He tries not to wince. “Do you mind? I’ll keep the top bit on.”

“Go ahead,” Hux says. Lili wriggles out of her underwear and straddles his thighs. “Do you want, ah —” (she distracts him momentarily, palming his cock) “Want my hands first, or —”

“I’ve been wet since you called me ‘attractive,’ you idiot,” she says. “Or since you looked at me like you wanted to eat me. About the same time.” She sounds a little breathless herself. “You can touch me if you want, but you can also be inside me right away. I don’t care, Armie, just do _something_.” He suspects that he’ll hurt her without a little more preparation, but she’s given her permission. Asked for it explicitly, in fact. She’ll have no one to blame but herself. He puts his hands on her hips and guides her up. She sinks down without hesitation, biting her bottom lip hard and making a high keening sound in the back of her throat. Like the sound of alusteel paneling being sheared off in a scrapyard, which he doesn't say because he knows it won't sound complimentary anywhere outside the echo chamber of his own head. 

“Alright?” he says. 

“Oh, yes,” Lili says. She braces her hands on his shoulders and rolls her hips. “Better than alright. Lovely.” Hux moves one hand from her hip up to her breast, like she had done when she first took off her dress. She grins down at him and rolls her hips again, bearing down hard around him. “How about you?” 

“I’ve been worse,” he says. He rubs his thumb over her nipple. The fabric is thin and the peak of it is very apparent. 

“Thanks,” she says, a little laugh cutting through her annoyance. He feels that laugh all through him. “Such flattery. You'll inflate my ego, Armie.” She stops talking then and starts moving in earnest, pressing harder on his shoulders for leverage. He watches the muscle of her thighs tense as she rises up and then comes back down hard, knocking the breath out of him. It's intense and Hux doesn't have to do much of anything. Lili is quite capably taking care of her own pleasure and his. He makes the mistake of losing himself in it.

A slap, sharp and sudden, brings him back out. He catches both of Lili’s warm little hands and holds them hard. She starts to overbalance, to fall onto him, but his grip on her hands keeps her from getting all the way there. 

“What,” Hux says, in what he thinks of as his command voice, “are you doing.” It’s less a question than a warning delivered coldly enough to make her look worried. 

“I’m so sorry,” she says. “Force of habit. My last boyfriend liked it quite a lot, and he's the same general type as you — sort of lanky and uptight — and I just. You know. Did it without thinking.” 

“Please refrain from doing so in the future,” Hux says. 

“Yes,” Lili says. “Okay. Do you want to keep on, or have I ruined it?” 

“Dampened, I would say, not ruined,” Hux says, feeling rather magnanimous. 

“Then it would help if you'd let me have my hands back,” Lili says. He releases her as soon as she says it and she falls forward, just barely catching herself before her face smacks into his. “If you could put your hand back on my tit,” she says, “that might also help.” Hux rolls his eyes but does as she asks, and they begin to fall back into a comfortable rhythm. She bites her bottom lip again and closes her eyes. 

_I could slap her back, the little tart,_ he thinks, but he doesn't. He slides his other hand down her stomach to just above where his cock is sliding in and out of her, wet and obscene. Might as well be courteous, since she is doing most of the work. She bares her teeth and hisses. He finds himself supporting more and more of her weight. She slumps against him completely when she comes, and makes no complaint when he tips her over onto her back as he chases his own orgasm. 

“Not bad, Armie,” she murmurs against his shoulder. “But keep your feet off my pillows. I’m sleeping here.” 

“Not _bad_?” he repeats. She turns her head to look at him, eyebrows raised.

“Perfectly adequate,” she elaborates. “I mean, I only came once. It’s not exactly a new galactic record. Or a new personal record.” 

“The evening’s young,” Hux says. He had no particular plans to stay, but being called merely adequate has his blood up. “Unless you have somewhere to be.”

“Well, well,” Lili says. “If more’s on offer, I won’t say no. I just assumed you were the one-and-done sort.” He responds by lowering his mouth to her nipple. She swats at him halfheartedly. “You’ll ruin the fabric, you beast!” She’s close to laughing, though, and close to sighing. 

“If you can afford this room, you can afford to buy another,” he says. He doesn’t specify further because he has no idea what to call the thing she’s wearing. Is it a brassiere? A bustier? 

“You wear _uniforms_ , you have no idea how much things cost!” She’s right.

“I’ll make it up to you,” he says. He starts to move down on her body and she pushes at him more seriously. 

“No, I already told you. You’ll get your feet on the pillows! This is what you get for flipping me over. Now we have to turn around again.” He lets her up so that she can scoot over, taking the position she had formerly put him in. She crosses her wrists over her head and wriggles a little. “Well, go on, soldier. Continue.” 

Hux has never particularly enjoyed the taste of ejaculate, regardless of whose it is or what kind of genitals it happens to come from. He’s even tasted his own before now. There was a boy at the Academy when they were both cadets who was mildly obsessed with making him lick his own semen off his fingers after they’d jerked each other off. This is not, however, about what he does or doesn’t enjoy. It’s about getting Lili to concede a point. 

She does insist on making him come once more before they part ways. She’s come four more times by then, on his tongue and his fingers, and seems absolutely smug about it. 

“Do you know, I think I’d put you in my top ten,” Lili says. She kisses him wetly. His mouth is very wet, mostly from her. 

“Out of how many?” Hux asks. She doesn’t tell him.  
___

To say that he has forgotten Lili by the time he has risen from Major General to General would be an exaggeration. But it’s one planetside assignation among several. There are so many other things to think about, so many variables to be considered both in day-to-day operations and long-term planning. Most importantly, he never found out her surname. He didn’t ask because he didn’t want to have to tell her his own. Better, simpler, safer to keep this sort of thing semi-anonymous. 

So when he hears that a meeting has been arranged with Auberg from Sonn-Blas, it’s the name that catches his attention. There might be thousands of Aubergs in the Outer Rim. It shouldn’t make him stop in his tracks and snap at the lieutenant briefing him. Auberg was his mother’s last name — one of two, according to Arkanisian tradition. Auberg was her matrilineal surname. (She hadn’t been permitted to give him either of her family names.) He demands the file on Auberg from Sonn-Blas. He’s not sure whether he dreads or hopes to find some connection there, but his interest has been piqued.

He’s not prepared to find that Auberg from Sonn-Blas is _Lilias Valerian_ Auberg. Her official headshot on her company identification has her hair pulled back severely, making her face look smooth and masklike. There’s no mistaking her, though. Arkanisian indeed. He does his own research from there. 

Lilias Valerian Auberg, born 4 ABY on Arkanis. Municipally educated until age eleven, at which point she received a privately-funded scholarship to an institution on the Inner Rim. Accepted into corporate training age nineteen. Father unknown or unrecorded, hence the single surname; her two-part given name may have been an attempt to protect her from ridicule on that count. Mother: Margil Auberg Idare. 

A cousin, he had thought. At _worst_. But Margil was his own mother’s name. 

The matter for consideration then becomes whether she knows and plans to blackmail him, or if a third party had arranged it in the hopes of blackmailing them both. The latter would be more efficient, in terms of profit yield, but likely would have happened already. The former is more probable. Channels of communication are difficult to secure. A face-to-face meeting would be ideal. Necessary, really. He wonders whether she might have told someone else. If killing her would solve the problem. The simplicity and neatness of the thought appeals to him. Not that the act itself would necessarily be neat. He’d like to take his time. To make her fully understand the foolishness of thinking she could compromise his integrity. 

Hux has barely thought of Lili in the years that have passed, but he thinks of her that night in very specific terms. 

The official meeting goes smoothly. Her accent is less pronounced than it used to be, or at least less pronounced than he remembers it. He only hears it on certain words; in the way she says his name closer to _hooks_ than _Hux_. She shows no sign of recognizing him. She wouldn’t, of course — not in public. Not until they’re alone. It would be easy to avoid being alone with her, but at this point, he doesn’t want to avoid anything. Better to have it over and done with.

“Do you still drink Corellian brandy?” he says. They are in his private office. The view is exquisite. 

“Only if you mix it with something, honestly,” she says. “I love that weird cherry stuff, but it’s so hard to get, this far out. If you have Vaschean rye, I’ll take some of that — you gave me a taste for it, as it were.” Her smile is small but very wicked. He pours her a glass and then another for himself. Not poisoned. That would be too quick and a waste of good liquor. “General Hux. _General_ Hux. You’ve done well for yourself. What was your rank when we met?”

“I thought you didn’t want to know.”

“I just didn’t want you to tell me without being asked. Now I’m asking.”

“Major General, then.” He takes a sip of the rye. 

“Still quite a catch.” She takes a sip of hers. “There was something I wanted to talk about.” Hux flexes one gloved hand without meaning to. This is it. “I didn’t know your last name then, but I made the connection.” Had Margil told her daughter about the man who had been her lover? Had he been their mother’s lover still, up until the evacuation? It’s possible that his mother had been obliged to pay for his education on her back. It’s possible that Lilias Valerian Auberg is more than his half-sister; it’s possible that she exists because of him. The idea holds a strange appeal. 

“What connection is that?” Hux says. There is a triangular blade up his sleeve. Triangular punctures are difficult to patch without immediate attention. 

“To the Commandant. The man who ran the Academy. Isn’t that right?” Hux nods. Let her dig her own grave. “I remember making some unkind comment about Academy officers. The truth is that my mother hated them, and I absorbed some of that. I hope I didn’t offend you too terribly. I hope we can still be… friends.” She reaches halfway across the desk and then lets her hand fall. He is meant to take her hand. He doesn’t. 

“I’m not sure anything more than friendship would be wise, given our professional connection,” Hux says crisply. “It would be a conflict of interest.”

Lili withdraws her hand. “Well, we’ll always have Illareen.” She knocks back the rest of her drink. “For what it’s worth, you’re still in my top ten. I have fond memories of you, General.”

“Likewise, Auberg.” They shake hands cordially. He can feel the warmth of her hand even through his glove.

He doesn’t finish his rye until long after she’s gone. And then he pours himself another.

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: sibling incest is a huge plot point (as mentioned); some weird historically-based sexual fantasies fetishizing sex work, along with stigmatizing contemporary sex work; brief non-negotiated sexual slapping; implied violent sexual fantasies; murder plans that don’t get carried out; implied/assumed past sexual violence (between their parents).


End file.
